Long working hours in the Middle East and Asia – shortest in France
People work an average of 1,902 hours per year in the surveyed cities but they work much longer in Asian and Middle Eastern cities, averaging 2,119 and 2,063 hours per year respectively. Overall, the most hours are worked in Cairo (2,373 hours per year), followed by Seoul (2,312 hours). People in Lyon and Paris, by contrast, spend the least amount of time at work according to the global comparison: 1,582 and 1,594 hours per year respectively.

It's not surprising: you see people in Cairo work several jobs all the time, while the self-employed work extremely long hours. This is not the same thing as working efficiently, of course, and Cairo does not have the reputation for being a place where you can get things done quickly. People partly work longer hours because it takes more to get things done.
But you can't deny that this is an unbalanced economy which forces people to work for ridiculously low salaries (particularly but not only in the public sector), privileges the upper middle class (which enjoys most of the benefits of low-cost living), provides little labor protection (indeed the police collaborates with factory owners to disband strikes) and where, on top of it, the state provides few quality services, meaning people must earn more to provide basic security for their families (i.e. health, etc.) The result: long hours, low quality of life. If only we could all be French.

The Literary Saloon says all there is to say about the fact that Yale University Press is putting out a serious scholarly book about the Danish cartoons--without including reproductions of the cartoons.
The whole story of the cartoons strikes me, not quite as a tragi-comedy, but let's say as a depressi-farce. Everyone comes out so poorly on all sides. Who's worse? The ant-Muslims bigots who get a kick out of the cartoons; the Muslims who prove every negative stereotype true by the way they react; or the liberals at Yale University Press who turn cultural sensitivity into ridiculous condescension and hysteria--assuming that if they publish the pictures, they'll have "blood on their hands"? Hard to say.

Last week I attended a cultural festival in the small northern town of Asilah.
A mural on the walls of Asilah's medina and a "A vendre" ("For Sale") sign on the right.
Morocco has dozens of cultural festivals, most of them dedicated to music. These are often fantastic--I had an unforgettable time at the Gnawa festival in Essaouira three years ago. But as I note in an article that just came out in the National, many of the festivals are sponsored by powerful politicians and seem to be motivated by issue of personal prestige. The idea that a cultural festival is enough to put a town "on the map"--and attract tourism and investment--has become a common-place, but the results aren't always there to back it up.

Egypt, historically one of the largest recipients of U.S. foreign aid, mounted a large lobbying effort, employing PLM Group — a joint venture of two well-connected K Street firms, the Podesta Group, headed by Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta, and the Livingston Group, founded by former Republican Rep. Robert Livingston of Louisiana — to preserve that funding between October 2007 and October 2008. The stakes are not small: Egypt has received more than $50 billion from the United States since 1975.
The United States agreed to large foreign aid payments to Egypt and Israel in 1978 following the historic peace agreement negotiated by Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin. As the Arab nation’s economy has eroded, excess American aid has allowed it to put off much-needed changes rather than spur them, critics say.
Lobbyists for Egypt had at least 279 contacts on military issues, the bulk of which occurred when PLM Group accompanied delegations of Egyptian military officers to meet members of Congress, administration officials and representatives from defense contractors — including BAE Systems, General Dynamics, General Electric, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. All five have done business with the Egyptian government, selling tanks, fighter jets, howitzers and radar arrays to its military. At the time of the meeting with the contractors, Podesta Group counted BAE Systems, General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin among its clients, while the Livingston Group represented Raytheon.

Incidentally, Egypt is ranked at #6 globally in terms of the number of contacts with Congress.
The info used for this reporting is made available by ForeignLobbying.org, through which you can look at individual countries' records. Here's the page for Egypt, which shows three Egyptian lobbying clients: the government, the government-backed textile exporters' association Alcotex, and -- this is a surprise -- the steel magnate and Gamal Mubarak acolyte Ahmed Ezz.
If you look at the page for Ahmed Ezz is says that Ezz paid the communication firm Qorvis for its work promoting the National Democratic Party conference in 2007. Which confirms what is widely said about Ezz: he finances the NDP out of his personal pocket; why else would the party not pay its PR firm itself? Here you have the cronyism of Egyptian politics in black-and-white.

The Western Sahara is an inhospitable patch of desert about the size of Colorado on Africa’s Atlantic coast, with a population of about 400,000, a GDP of only $900 million, and an economy based on nomadic herding, fishing and phosphorous mining. It is also one of the last colonies in the world — Morocco annexed it a few years after Spain granted it independence in 1975 — and the subject of 34 U.N. Security Council resolutions on the territory since 1999.
In late 2007 and 2008, the desert region was a top priority for Morocco’s hired lobbyists. At issue was Western Sahara’s autonomy, but the story also shows how, in a foreign lobbying arms race, the side with the biggest arsenal can come out on top.
The government of Morocco sought the support of Congress in this lengthy territorial dispute. The region has long demanded independence. An indigenous insurgent group, the Polisario Front, waged a guerrilla war against the Moroccan military until the United Nations brokered a cease-fire in 1991.
Part of the terms of that deal included holding a referendum to determine the territory’s final status, but no vote has been held. In 2007, Morocco issued a proposal to grant Western Sahara autonomy within sovereign Morocco. The U.S. initially welcomed the proposal, and direct talks began between Morocco and the Polisario with the involvement of Algeria, which supports self-determination for the Sahrawi tribes from the area.
Toby Moffett, a lobbyist for Morocco who served as a Democratic congressman from Connecticut in the 1970s and ’80s, wrote an op-ed for the April 8, 2007, edition of The Los Angeles Times,explaininghow he presented Morocco’s position to an unnamed member of Congress: “Morocco has a good story to tell,” he wrote. “It believes that the long-standing dispute with Algeria and the rebel Polisario group over the Western Sahara must be resolved.
“We tell the congresswoman and her staff that the region is becoming a possible Al Qaeda training area,” he wrote. “Algeria and the Polisario recently hired lobbyists, too, so we’ll have our hands full.”
Indeed, records show the Algerian government’s lobbyists had 36 contacts with members of Congress and staff promoting self-determination for the people of Western Sahara. The Algerians paid a modest $416,000 in lobbying fees.
By comparison, lobbyists for the government of Morocco had 305 contacts with members of Congress and their staff. Morocco paid $3.4 million in lobbying expenses — putting it among the top foreign government spenders for FARA filings in the period.
The intense campaign won converts. A bipartisan group of some 173 House members signed on to a statement supporting Morocco’s offer of autonomy for the region without formal independence. President Bush also expressed support for Morocco’s plan in summer of 2008. And this April, 229 representatives sent a letter to President Obama urging him to back Morocco.
Until Obama reversed Bush’s stance last month, Morocco’s investment worked.

The article also briefly mentions Egypt lobbying, which I'll post about separately.
Also see this article which has the countries that are top spenders in US lobbying. From the Arab world, the list includes (I list the ranking from the global list):
#1 United Arab Emirates (nearly half of which is Dubai alone)
#5 Iraq
#6 Morocco
#7 Saudi Arabia

✪ Back to Business as usual | Hozz in DC, triumphant.
✪ Michele Dunne - Standing Up to Mubarak | Dunne has been one of the strongest voices among DC think-tankers shining a spotlight on the degradation of Egyptian politics and the problem posed by succession for US interests. Here she calls on Obama to voice strong concern about the succession process. I'll write more about this.
✪ Huckabee defies Obama | To think I once thought Huckabee was funny. But apparently he backs settlements and thinks Palestinians should go and get a country "elsewhere." Not amusing at all, Mr Failed Chat-Show Host.
✪ Middle East Diary | Rush transcript of Mubarak on Charlie Rose | Hannah has the goods. The man is obsessed with stability - he says it 14 times.
✪ Egypt labor strikes point to desperate conditions -- latimes.com | I wonder what this company's profit margin is: "They were told to be patient; salaries would rise and conditions improve. The men breathe phosphates, ammonia and other toxins six days a week. One died in a machine accident. Five were informed by doctors that exposure to chemicals has left them sterile."

I have a piece on Omar Suleiman up at Foreign Policy, in which I examine the case for Egypt's chief of intelligence succeeding Hosni Mubarak. I thought the focus in most reporting tended to stress Gamal, and wanted to balance things out by imagining how a Suleiman takeover might look like. Although the headline (not mine) may seem like it's an endorsement, the idea is more to reflect on the current "Gamal vs. Omar" debate and how bloody depressing it all is. I conclude:

Lost in this Egyptian Kremlinology is the fact that neither Gamal Mubarak nor Omar Suleiman presents a clear departure from the present state of affairs. Neither offers the new social contract that so many of Egypt's 80 million citizens are demanding in strikes and protests. The prevalence of the Gamal vs. Omar debate, more than anything, highlights the low expectations ordinary Egyptians have for a democratic succession to Hosni Mubarak's 28-year reign. Those low expectations come with their own quiet tyranny, too.

On the basis of the data presented in this report, an analysis of the choice of targeted areas, methods of attack and the number of civilians killed and injured clearly indicates a reckless disregard for civilian life synonymous with intent. Further, it is clear that 'Operation Cast Lead' was not just an assault against the Palestinian population, but also against the Gaza Strip’s infrastructure and the livelihoods of its people, with factories, farms and other economic resources systematically targeted. Prima facie evidence exists of the commission of war crimes amounting to grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, most notably wilful killing of civilians, including women and children; extensive destruction of property, both residential and commercial, public and private; and wilfully causing great suffering and serious injury to body or health. This is in addition to the fact that the resort to the use of force by Israel was unlawful in the first place.
The denial of access to foreign journalists during the siege and Israel’s refusal to cooperate with various international investigation mechanisms that have been established are testament to a desire to suppress the truth and full information regarding the scale of the destruction wrought by this unprecedented attack. The figures contained in this report are intended to contribute to a growing database of documentary evidence on 'Operation Cast Lead'.
More than six months after the end of operation, the Gaza Strip remains under siege. The continued border closures by Israel and the prevention of crucial supplies from entering Gaza, ensure that the humanitarian situation remains dire.

Incidentally, considering how detailed and important this report is, they should not have released it in mid-August, when few people are paying attention, but waited till September.

A few days ago, many bloggers with an interest in Israel/Palestine noticed the op-ed by Robert Malley and Hussein Agha. Helena Cobban thought it was banal and Stephen Walt was frustrated with its ambiguity. The American Jewish Committee said it was all the Palestinians' fault anyway in a letter to the NYT. The American branch of Peace Now said the Malley-Agha argument that fundamental roots of the conflict must be tackled head on is besides the point, since the two-state solution is about finding a compromise. Uber-Zionist Jeffrey Goldberg derided what he thought was a rejection of the two-state solution (which in any case he only pretends to believe in, at least in a serious sense).
But most of all they complained that the headline was inappropriate; their argument is not so much that the "two state solution doesn't solve anything," but that it does not solve everything. Malley called the headline unfortunate and clarified that, no, he hadn't suddenly become a one-stater, and no, he is not saying Israel is not or should not be a "Jewish state" (whatever that means - Malley states that, obviously, Israel will be considered a state for the Jews no matter whether it defines itself as a Jewish state, which arguably it already does in terms of its Basic Law and the preferential treatment accorded to Jews through aliya.)
I wonder in all this uproar whether people are losing sight that the Malley-Agha duo are not activists or academics, but policy advisors. The most important bit of their piece comes at the end:

For years, virtually all attention has been focused on the question of a future Palestinian state, its borders and powers. As Israelis make plain by talking about the imperative of a Jewish state, and as Palestinians highlight when they evoke the refugees’ rights, the heart of the matter is not necessarily how to define a state of Palestine. It is, as in a sense it always has been, how to define the state of Israel.

This is, in my view, an extremely polite way of saying that for a solution to be found Israel has to decide what its borders are (it has not thus far, keeping the option of Eretz Israel.) Secondly, Malley-Agha are extremely practical analysts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they do not believe (like many senior Palestinians in Fatah) that the right of return is a possibility, but recognize that a symbolic concession towards recognizing it is necessary. What has never been clear from the Israel side is whether it is ready to abandon the potentiality of Eretz Israel and settle for a limited state, roughly around the 1967 lines, that would provide a reasonable framework to deal with the "demographic timebomb" that frighten so many Israelis. I am not sure that many Israelis are willing to give up on this potentiality (some because of ethno-religious chauvinism, others to provide "strategic depth"), and the international community has never pushed seriously on this.
The tiresome argument over settlement expansion being played out by the Obama administration is a waste of time. The too timid message behind Malley-Agha, I suspect, is that Israel must start defining itself more clearly rather than trying to limit the sovereignty of a Palestinian state. And that the US (hullo, this is an op-ed in the NYT not Haaretz!) has to get serious about getting it to do that. This may be an interpretation based on what I'd like too, but whatever the intent of the op-ed, most important is its audience: US policymakers, not the Israel-Palestine activist/think-tanker/academic crowd.
Anyway, I leave you with what I think is the best (and funniest) op-ed on Israel/Palestine I've read in a while, written by Ezzedine Choukri, who worked on the Oslo process for the UN in the 1990s. Choukri makes a different point to the Quartet: stop wasting time on confidence-building measures, and move full speed ahead towards imposing a solution:

There is no point in repeating the arguments and counterarguments on each side of this debate; the parties have done so ad nauseum. Instead, try looking at this matter as if we were arranging a marriage between two hostile families; many of whom -- including the prospective bride and groom -- doubt the intentions of the other and question the possibility of finding agreement on the marriage's terms.
The mediators, who see in the marriage a possible end to the hostility between the two families that would bring peace to the village, are trying to convince bride, groom and the members of the two families of the merits of such a deal.
In the midst of their zeal, and to allay the multiple concerns of the groom (who has commitment issues as well as problems with his boisterous family members), the mediators encourage the bride to have sex with her prospective groom before the marriage is concluded. "Sex would entice him to proceed; it will reassure him that the money he will put in the marriage will be well rewarded," they say.
Mostly liberal in their thinking and ways of life, the mediators see no problem in the proposition (neither does the prospective groom, for all too different reasons). After all, millions of couples in America and Europe engage in premarital sex as a way of experiencing each other and determining whether it would be a good idea to proceed further. There is no disrespect, foul play or wrongdoing involved. They argue.
The proposition sounds logical to the bride (and quite convenient for the groom). Yet the bride's family is really conservative. Even if she finds it tempting, the bride knows well that she cannot face her family with such a proposition. "It will be suicide," she says. However, not wanting to undermine the prospects of her own marriage, the bride is willing to engage in premarital intimate encounters -- but short of intercourse. And in return for these intimacies she requires the groom to make demonstrable progress towards signing the marriage contract.
Thrilled by this "window of opportunity", the mediators spend weeks negotiating the nature of these intimacies; how much skin is involved, whether it would be made public or kept secret, how far they will go, how frequently they will meet, etc. At the same time, they negotiate the nature of demonstrable steps that would satisfy the bride in return; the nature of commitments the groom has to make, whether these would be reversible, phased, synchronised with the intimacies, etc. (Verification and arbitration remain contentious and unresolved issues).
Instead of working on finalising the terms of the marriage contract, the mediators waste everyone's time on fine-tuning the terms of these confidence-building measures. Naturally, neither the groom nor the bride derives any pleasure from their halfway intimacies, and they are busy quarrelling over each other's compliance with the terms of the deal. The families get no closer to marriage; nobody has negotiated the terms of that agreement -- and its difficult issues didn't become any easier on their own. In the meantime, the bride's family gets angrier as they feel they were taken for a ride (again) and eventually lock the bride at home. And those who always opposed the marriage on both sides feel vindicated in their prejudice: "this marriage will never take place," they say; "if they can't even agree on these tiny matters, how are they going to face common life with all its challenges?"
Senator Mitchell and friends: would you please drop the useless confidence-building track that depleted precious political resources of so many mediators before you and focus on the real issue? Get the marriage contract signed, after which you can have all the sex you want.

A piece I wrote about the Malas brothers--charming Syrian twin actor/playwrights--has just finally run in The National. I saw the brothers do an impromptu performance of their play "Melodrama" in Cairo in June and then discovered they had originally performed it (40 times!) in their tiny bedroom in Damascus, and become an underground sensation. Here's an excerpt:

When the Malas twins were 16, they saw a play together and “decided we must become actors”, Mohammed says over coffee the next day (he could just as well be Ahmed; the twins often wear matching outfits and have a habit of finishing each other’s sentences). But their application to the highly competitive Syrian High Institute of Theatrical Arts was rejected three times.
“They told us: ‘You’re not talented, you won’t be actors.’”
Syria has a long and illustrious theatrical tradition and a burgeoning movie and TV industry that has resulted in some very popular and well-produced TV serials of late. The brothers auditioned for TV and film parts but never got any major roles (“For TV, you need connections,” Ahmed says), and ended up working full-time at the children’s theatre in Damascus.
The twins channelled their frustrated ambitions into Melodrama, a play that is as self-referential as you can get: actors portraying actors who spend the play talking about acting. There is no plot, just a whirlwind of allusions to high art and pop culture.